1. Statement of the Technical Field
The invention concerns computing systems. More particularly, the invention concerns computing systems and methods for efficient video analysis.
2. Description of the Related Art
The large amount of video surveillance data collected and maintained today requires increasingly efficient methods for analysis. There are many challenges to the analysis of video which are imposed by it's usage as a forensic tool across military applications, law enforcement applications and commercial applications. For example, video analysis is used in unmanned mission applications, critical transportation surveillance applications, energy infrastructure surveillance applications, online geospatial video portal applications, medical applications and industrial production applications. These applications share a common need for efficient analysis of video data which may or may not exist within a geospatial context.
Some traditional approaches for video analysis involve manual video play-back and/or frame-by-frame analysis. One can readily appreciate that techniques employing manual video play-back and frame-by-frame analysis are ad-hoc, time consuming and expensive. Other traditional approaches for video analysis involve comparing the content of two or more video streams. This comparison is achieved by toggling between different video streams or by viewing different video streams that are presented in a side by side manner. Such comparison techniques are time consuming and subject to human error as a result of operator fatigue.